In this broadcast of In Focus: Student Edition, we’re sharing apps, programs and plugins to make your College life better, organized and more successful.

Innovate to Educate is a series created by Educational Technology and Digital Media Productions to share information about innovative technology being used by our amazing faculty at each of our campuses. In this episode, we speak to Professor Dana Logan about how she uses educational technology in her classroom to engage students.

Additional Resources

Socrative

Free and Paid versions availablehttps://www.socrative.com

How to Request Software

In the fourth episode of Innovate to Educate, Assistant Director of Educational Technology Brandi Bleak welcomes Cecil Center's Library Learning Commons Manager Michael Turnquist to discuss the use of iPads and the Educreations app to create podcasts and learning objects that are integrated into the college's Libguides system.

Having been involved in the "business" of education for a number of years, Mr. Turnquist is interested in how to make it easier for students to create and find information in Mathematics and Science. Sensitive to the ways that information transfer and availability have changed with the advent of computer technology, the conversation revolves around how libraries are changing in response to these phenomena.

Join us for a common-sense look at how FSCJ's libraries are incorporating technology reach our students!

Are you using videos in your classroom or Blackboard shell and have put off captioning them because it is too hard, or too expensive, or you just don't know how to do it? No need to admit it, because we have just the tool for you!

Introducing Katura REACH Auto-captioning, the free, easy to use tool that can help you to maintain an accessible learning environment while keeping the hassle to a minimum. View the video below for more information, and remember: Accessibility is Everyone's Responsibility!

FSCJ recently made the switch to Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, a very useful synchronous communication tool that is available within every Blackboard course shell. Blackboard allows individuals to collaborate (hence the name ;) ) over the web using their computer's onboard camera or microphone to give live lessons or work on group projects.

It also allows professors to share and mark up powerpoints or word documents with students, show and demonstrate applications and screens, and record lessons for later viewing by students. It is a truly versatile and incredibly useful tool for online faculty, as well as those teaching face to face classes!

Prior to Spring Break, the Educational Technology Team hosted a series of webinars that took a deep look at the many features of Blackboard Collaborate. All three webinars are shared below.

This webinar is useful for proessors who are just getting started with using Collaborate. It covers setting up the camera and microphone, sharing applications and files, and the use of the digital whiteboard.

This webinar picks up where Beyond the Basics left off, and covers breaking students into groups, recording sessions, and ideas for using the whiteboard and file sharing applications.

This webinar reviews the features of the Collaborate mobile app, as well as best practices for its use.

We hope that these webinars are useful for faculty and staff in providing a introduction to and a reference for Collaborate. As always, please feel free to direct any further questions to et@fscj.edu.

The Office of Training and Organizational Development teamed up with Academic Technology to produce a live web-based training for student services employees to introduce the new Campus Solutions admissions system! If you missed the training, or would like to view it again, you can do so here. The same video is also accessible at training.fscj.edu. Please direct any questions that you may have about the video's content to hrtraining@fscj.edu.

Did you miss Training and Organizational Development's SharePoint Webinar on Professional Development Day? You're in luck! Click the image below to view the recording, which was delivered by TOD's Training and Development Specialist, Dr. Barbara Moyer.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the topic, SharePoint is a useful file-sharing tool that is a free part of the Office365 Suite to which all FSCJ employees have access. It can be used to create departmental or organizational websites, as well as for project collaboration and document authoring. In the webinar, Dr. Moyer begins with the basics of setting up a SharePoint site, and continues with a discussion of the major features of the application.

If you are a more advanced SharePoint user, the Training and Organizational Development Office hosts face-to-face classes to help you move to the next level. Find more information about this and other TOD offerings at https://training.fscj.edu/.

As a student, you can get much more than just an education from FSCJ! Watch our most recent In Focus: Student Edition to learn about some of the free stuff that is available on campus and in the community, just for showing your student ID!

When you are finished watching, click here to learn more about the discounts that are mentioned, as well as other bonus freebies.

Watch the latest episode of In Focus Live, shot on Wednesday, November 9 at 1 PM. It spotlights the development and use of Open Educational Resources (OERs) at FSCJ.

Open Educational Resources are free materials (books, media, and lessons) that can be used for teaching and research. During the live show, guests Shannon Dew, Director of Online Library Services, and Dr. Peter Shapiro, Director of Creative Learning Services, explained how to access OERs for a variety of purposes and provided an overview of an new degree pathway that relies exclusively on OERs as course material.